Genetic diversity and in vitro antibiotic susceptibility profile of Salmonella species isolated from domestic water and wastewater sources in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa

Abstract

We assessed the genetic diversity of forty Salmonella isolates obtained from selected domestic water and waste water sources in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa using DNA fingerprinting and antibiotic susceptibility profile as test indices. Restriction digests and SDS/PAGE as well as the DNA dendograms of the isolates revealed that most of these strains show a high percentage of genetic similarity, and suggests that these methods are valuable tools for evaluating the relatedness of
Salmonella species. Also, of the seven antibiotics and sulfonamides tested against the Salmonella species, five namely, neomycin, chloramphenicol, kanamycin, streptomycin and cotriomoxazole were significantly inhibitory, while the bacteria showed considerable resistance to doxycycline and
sulfomethoxazole.